Mr. Adee to Mr. McCormick.
Washington, September 1, 1904.
(Mr. Adee informs Mr. McCormick that it is represented to the Department that the British steamship Calchas, sailing from Tacoma to Liverpool via Suez Canal, and largely, if not entirely, laden with an American cargo, the property of American citizens, was not, from the nature of her cargo and destination, subject to capture and confiscation. The cargo consisted in part of flour, machinery, raw cotton, rough lumber, varnish, and leaf tobacco, and was partly consigned to Japanese ports, partly to neutral ports. Instructs him to advise the minister for foreign affairs that the principle of the decision of the Vladivostok prize court in the case of the Arabia can not be admitted as a principle nor recognized as a policy by the United States Government. The ground of the decision, as stated by the minister for foreign affairs, was that the goods in question were consigned to various commercial houses in Japanese ports. Further instructs him to request that the American cargo consigned to such ports, if the seizure is based on such destination to private commercial houses in those ports, be released.)